Scene: Reporter with microphone in center of the camera
Voice: Hi My name is Kurt Zimmerman reporting on the issue of stalking and how a man that was a victim of being stalked online turned out to be the actual stalker.
Scene: Reporter with microphone in close up.
Voice: Amy Klein's article in the New York times explains her fascination with a person she decided to find out about online. That person, Luke Ford, eventually became her stalker.
Scene: Reporter continues speaking, showing the blog site on screen.
Voiceover: Amy met Luke at a party, and when she went home she decided to look up his name online. What she found was something shocking: she read about herself, as described by Luke on his blog, including things that weren't true.
Scene: Picture of Luke
Voiceover: Luke was involved in the porn industry, and his blog was something that he did on a daily basis, including facts about Amy.
Scene: Interview with Amy Klein
Voice: "I wasn’t familiar with the ethics of blogging (or lack thereof) in terms of what someone can write about you — without fact-checking or sourcing or the other protections that journalists have in place. It was exasperating to have these random claims and judgments about me out there for anyone to read. But complaining about it, as I discovered, only gave him more material."
Scene: Reporter talking again, on screen.
Voice: So Luke, who Amy intended to be a victim of stalking, actually turned out to be the stalker himself, and in a very nasty way.
Close up: picture of Luke Ford's actual blog.
Voiceover description read out loud, as well as on screen: “I’d like to bonk Amy on the head with a Talmud and drag her back to my Aborigine-style hovel and make her mine.”
Scene: Reporter talking again, on screen.
Voice: Luke's blog got deeper, accusing her writing for NY times as "indifferent" and "compelling" in her "delusions." She eventually tried to ignore him.
Scene: Interview with Amy Klein
Voice: "Although in truth it was oddly flattering to have someone obsessed with me, even someone like Luke Ford. We humans are egotistical creatures: We look through other people’s wedding albums searching for pictures of ourselves, so of course we can’t help but feel flattered by someone who follows our every movement, and even writes poetry about us."
Scene: Reporter talking again, on screen.
Voice: But then, as time progressed, Luke became tired of talking about Amy and moved on to harassing other reporters in her department. Amy left her department, and she spent time working on her own website catalogue of her published articles. Amy forgot about Luke, and Luke apparently forgot about her. Then finally, Amy decided to look up Luke's blog one more time.
Close up: picture of Luke Ford's actual blog.
Voiceover description read out loud, as well as on screen: "She left two weeks ago. Normally I have a satellite circling Amy from about 100 miles overhead, but I’ve been distracted of late. ... Amy e-mailed everybody in her life, about 100 or so persons, but that list did not include your humble correspondent, oh my brothers."
Scene: Interview with Amy Klein
Voice: "He cataloged my departure, my new projects, and the e-mail announcement I had sent. He wondered about my future career, why I hadn’t told him, and what would happen to me. . . 'I miss you, baby!' he wrote. Well, Luke, you might never guess it, but I’ll miss you, too."
Scene: Reporter talking again, on screen.
Voice: So internet stalking has become an issue as well as a blessing with this story. Two people who developed a relationship online: through one's obsessive stalking and lying, and another's eventual dependence on being stalked. Most people aren't aware of how stalking online can lead to trouble. Should Amy have never looked up Luke's name online? Should she have refrained from being a stalker to avoid being the stalked? We'll let you decide. I'm Kurt Zimmerman. This has been a news brief.
Script by Kurt Zimmerman and Kevin Gold